Conclusions
It is only recently that we have seen attempts to conceptualize health literacy in the context of medication use by using terms such as medication literacy. To advance the field of medication literacy, we advise other groups to adopt the updated nomenclature as per what has been recently defined by our group [26] as “the degree to which individuals can obtain, comprehend, communicate, calculate and process patient-specific information about their medications to make informed medication and health decisions in order to safely and effectively use their medications, regardless of the mode by which the content is delivered (e.g. written, oral, and visual).” While it is true that we should strive to improve health literacy on a global scale, it does not matter whether people have high or low levels of health literacy if they are not provided information that is accessible and easy to understand. Indeed, there are tens of billions of dollars spent annually on developing medicines and it is left to the clinician, nurse, pharmacist, and patient to navigate these winding and inter-connected roads of health-and medication literacy. The effectiveness and safety of medicines cannot be maximized unless patients understand their role in the medicine-taking process. Moving forward, it is crucial that front end health care workers recognize inter-individual differences in health literacy, and whenever appropriate, that they address the medication literacy challenges they may face when dispensing medications or providing drug information to patients.
There are well-validated tools to assess health literacy in adults, but there are far fewer tools to assess health literacy in children. For medication literacy the tools are far less developed, especially so for the youth. Because pharmacists are an accessible resource for medication information, their position in the health care continuum allows them to apply medication literacy tools to ensure proper counseling and the responsible use of medicines. Clear and easily understood pictograms or infographics should be included as part of each drug information leaflet, as these forms of passive information have been shown by multiple studies to have the potential to improve comprehension and the patient’s recall of drug-related information. Effective spoken and written communication of information about medicine to patients is crucial to the success of treatments, and in this internet age of near total connectivity, the importance of incorporating active forms of eHealth communication into health-and-medication literacy will be areas of future research. With this in mind, we believe that pharmacists are well situated to ensure that patients understand their medication regimens correctly, and that they use their medications safely and effectively through the use of literacy-based communication techniques. Because medication literacy has the potential to enhance access to health care services –and especially so for the most vulnerable populations–we believe this to be an important topic for clinicians, nurses, pharmacists, and more importantly, for children and families.